Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
09 1
In the new satirical film (Untitled) by Jonathan Parker and Catherine DiNapoli, the
tagline for the piece is “Everyone’s got an opinion.” However, the question that always
remains with any work from, about, or within the contemporary art world is, whose
opinion matters? Who gets to decide what is art? (Untitled) begs the question through
the dialogues of the seemingly disparate characters, all functioning at various levels of
talent and taste. Adrian Jacobs (Adam Goldberg) is a brooding, morose composer of
atonal symphonies that are ill-received by most folks with an ear, especially his own
Russian vocalist. His brother, Josh, (Eion Bailey) produces innocuous, identical abstract
paintings of dots and blurry color fields, which attracts the attention of local gallerist
Madeleine Gray. (Marley Shelton) She manages to market the paintings to commercial
institutions, a back-room practice that serves as the primary financial support for her
garde artist individuals who suit Gray’s neurotic palette. Vinnie Jones plays the arrogant,
coupled with household objects like vacuums, chandeliers, and cosmetic mirrors, are
ninety percent sonorous material that shifts and vibrates every time she moves, Barko
comments that it is not an “eye for art” that Gray possesses, but an ear.
To the viewer’s delight, both Madeleine’s eye and ear are clouded upon witnessing
Adrian and his band of misfits (including Lucy Punch as the Clarinet) in concert for the
first time. Adrian, who has resolved to commit suicide in three years if he doesn’t make it
big, is constantly in search of his own inspiration. David Lang scores the music of the
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film, punching up and incorporating every quotidian, percussive sound imaginable, (i.e.
shoes, clothing, cell phones, paper, glass) which always registers with the audience, yet is
somehow overlooked by Adrian in his desperate search for big inspiration. The viewer
begins to realize as the film progresses, however, that what inspires art most of all may
come from that which one does not see. In other words, that which is so embedded in
everyday life, petite and undetectable without a necessary merging of the senses.
(Untitled) draws heavily on this theme of experiencing art with more than just one
sensory mode of perception. With shelves of books and moleskins lining his bed mantle,
Adrian meticulously records notes throughout the film. He samples the sounds made by
some of Madeleine’s borrowed clothing, yet he is still unable to draw inspiration from
her in the present moment. When they are together in her apartment, surrounded by the
tongue-in-cheek pop artifice of signs, (a blue walrus sculpture with glittery tusks, LSD-
inspired smiling flowers, and a type painting that boldly asserts, NO YOU SHUT UP) and
the disconnect between the perceptible world and his own artistic sensibilities.
Further complicating the angst of alienation is Josh’s discovery of his brother’s love
affair with the gallerist, along with the discovery of the nature of Gray’s commercial
transactions of his back-room paintings. When Josh demands a show at Gray’s gallery,
she resolves to keep her front and back rooms (respectively, metaphors for collectors and
clients) separate. Gray eventually has no choice but to show the horrid dot paintings, at
which point the reversal of front and back room demographics works in her utter
disfavor. Another distinction between the world of art and truth occurs when Barko
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claims, “Critics love theory. Collectors love beauty.” Some viewers may read this
disconnection from truth. Barko’s entire ideology relies on his disinterest and inability to
produce any real meaning by his art. Whether or not the art does well appears to hinge
only on the prices asked for it amidst the present scene of collectors, rather than assuming
any meaning in an historical context. The film plays up themes of death and immortality
heavily through the taxidermy and suicidal contemplations, but by doing this only further
demonstrates the split in the characters where personal history gets lost in the art making
process. Even with Josh’s fluid ability to rattle off jargon about the growth of his artistic
vision of color and form, he and his body of art still lack real, intersubjective narratives
with the world. What falls into this void between art and the truth of the personal
After viewing this movie at San Francisco’s Embarcadero this past weekend, we had a
Q+A session with co-writer Catherine DiNapoli, who graciously fumbled through ninety
percent of the questions with as much hype as possible about the individuals who worked
on the film. One question she could not quite answer, however, came from a vexed critic
who asked her to speak to the disjointed direction of the piece in contrast to its fluid
writing style. DiNapoli was thrown for a loop and tried to shrug off the question as best
she could. This was much to my dismay, as she may well have been able to solidify the
claim to work in the film’s favor. We gather that Parker and DiNapoli’s film intends to
disconnected from significant meaning. We should recognize and interact with that
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particular aspect of the piece; doing otherwise can lead only to the reinforced dominance